Taking Her Fortune into Her Own Hands
by DezoPenguin
Summary: A lazy summer morning waking up together provokes flirting, teasing, and Natsuki's curiosity about communication and just how she and Shizuru ended up this way.


_A/N: Happy anniversary to my beloved wife of eighteen years, Tarma Hartley. As she so often does, she requested ShizNat for the holiday!_

~X X X~

 **Taking Her Fortune into Her Own Hands**

 _(not featuring the Kuga-Fujino family pets because they were sleeping in)_

~X X X~

The morning sun shone down, cascading through the window and across the bed, greeting a lazy day during summer break.

Natsuki Kuga blinked as the light began to penetrate her eyelids. She scrunched her eyes and nose in a way some people might consider cute and adorable.

"Go 'way, sun," she mumbled.

The sun, because it was obviously a heartless and cruel heavenly body, without sympathy for a young woman's struggles, did not oblige, instead remaining stubbornly up.

"Dammit," Natsuku concluded, and opened her eyes.

She found herself staring into a smiling face.

Shizuru Fujino lay with her head on the other pillow, eyes wide open, a pleasant smile hinting at forbidden secrets playing about her lips. She actually looked very pretty, but Natsuki was not awake enough for proper ogling.

"What are you doing up?" she murmured, her voice still thick with sleep. Her tongue felt as fuzzy as her mind. The mystery of "early rising Shizuru" was occupying all of Natsuki's functional brain cells.

"Well, it is a beautiful summer morning," Shizuru said. "Is it not logical to be up enjoying it?"

"You are possibly the laziest person in Japan," Natsuki said. It will be noted that Natsuki was not known for her tact at any time, but when she hadn't yet woken up, the entire concept went completely out the window.

She'd probably feel bad about saying that later. Even if it was true. Over a year of living with Shizuru had taught her all kinds of things, such as the fact that usually Shizuru woke up with foggy eyes, slurred voice, and hands that reached for the snooze button with the same enthusiasm as they usually did for Natsuki. Of course, sometime after that a switch seemed to magically flip (even before she had her first cup of tea, so it wasn't just the effect of caffeine) and she transformed into the elegant, perfectly composed young woman who could appear stylish and graceful while unclogging a toilet, but she didn't start out that way.

Some of the best parts of living with Shizuru were things like that, getting to see the secret side of her that nobody else got to know. There was something deliciously intimate about it, knowing the hidden face of someone who made such an effort to be polished and pristine in her outside appearance.

Natsuki also supposed that phrases like "deliciously intimate" coming naturally into her mind was part of how being in a relationship had changed her, although not necessarily for the better. She was deeply suspicious of dialogue resembling bad love poetry or double entendres…despite the fact that she was waking up next to the sovereign empress of double entendres.

" _Ikezu_ ," Shizuru said, pouting theatrically. "I am merely well-rested after a good night's sleep. Which, I may add, was entirely due to Natsuki's vigorous and diligent efforts to insure that I was properly tired out by a reasonable hour." She brushed her fingertips over a prominent hickey on her collarbone.

"See! The sovereign empress of double entendres!"

Shizuru blinked.

"I think I may have missed some of that conversation?"

"Something I was thinking. Seriously, how do you always hit your cues like that? It's like God lets you see the script for the universe so you can get all your lines exactly right."

"Hmm, I had not yet thought of trying that strategy."

"I have my doubts," Natsuki said, her tone dark.

"I do feel flattered that you think of me as an empress and not a mere queen, however."

"It's the Kyoto accent, I think. When I start imagining you in metaphors, my brain keeps going to the Heian period."

"Ah, I see."

If Natsuki recalled correctly, Shizuru's family actually was descended from Heian-kyo nobility, some branch family of the Fujiwaras or the Minamotos. They had neither any special position or unusual fortune now, but the sense of tradition was strong in the entire family.

"And don't think you can get away with blaming all this on me. You're the one who was all over me last night."

"I do not recall Natsuki objecting."

Shizuru let her fingers travel from the hickey-marked collarbone towards the shoulder-strap of her camisole—or, at least, what had been the shoulder strap before overly enthusiastic hands had ripped it loose from the bodice when more conventional means of clothing removal had proven ineffective. Shizuru toyed with the strap, twisting it between her fingertips.

 _Dammit_ , Natsuki thought, blushing. The bad part of being part of a committed relationship was that when debauched recreation took place (as it so frequently did), it was generally under the influence of love rather than alcohol and so it was readily remembered the next morning.

This was also the good part, as Shizuru would have been sure to point out had Natsuki said something aloud. Natsuki did _not_ say something aloud largely because, well, Shizuru would have been right and Natsuki knew it.

Making love with Shizuru was definitely an area where Natsuki was much more comfortable with the act itself than she was talking about it. As opposed to Shizuru, who seemed to have no trouble at all discussing the most intimate or personal subjects (to the extent that mutually consensual acts taken within the bounds of a committed relationship could be considered perverse, wicked, or lewd) as casually as she discussed the weather. That was true whether she was having a frank and open conversation, trying to seduce Natsuki, or just teasing her girlfriend without any intent for it to go anywhere. Thought those last two could be hard to tell apart. In fact, there had been a number of times when Natsuki had given way to a seduction attempt and startled her girlfriend because she hadn't actually meant it to go anywhere.

(Not that this ever stopped Shizuru from graciously accepting Natsuki's generous offers. Although her character tended towards careful planning and control of situations, she did not object to spontaneity when appropriate.)

"How do you do it?" Natsuki blurted out.

She was rewarded by an occurrence not commonly found in nature: a look of blank confusion on the face of her girlfriend, and for the second time in five minutes besides.

"What do you mean, Natsuki?"

"Make double-entendres and talk about sex and tease me about lewd things so easily. I mean, we've been living together for nearly a year and a half as a couple, and most of the time I can work myself around to do it without too much embarrassment…"

"I am very happy with Natsuki for that. After all, a couple needs to be able to communicate openly and honestly about physical intimacy so that they can know what each other likes, wants, and needs—or doesn't. Although," she added, touching her lower lip with a fingertip in a theatrically thoughtful pose, "I _do_ miss being able to conjure up one of Natsuki's so delightful blushes at will."

Natsuki snorted.

"Idiot. Besides, I'd have thought you'd have too much pride to constantly take the easy path. Are you an expert tease or just so lazy you'll always grab low-hanging fruit?"

"I do agree; it's important to challenge myself now and again." The twinkle in Shizuru's eyes promised mischief. Indeed, _devilish_ was a better description of the look, and not just because of the rich burgundy color.

Natsuki also realized belatedly that she had just described herself as "the easy path" and Shizuru _hadn't_ called her on it. That _really_ meant trouble for the future!

She decided to get back on topic, both because she genuinely wanted an answer and in the faint hope it might distract Shizuru from epic teasing vengeance.

"A-anyway, what I mean is, you've always been able to tease me right from the very beginning. Even when we were just friends and I didn't understand that you had any interest in me as anything else, you were always able to tease and flirt and poke fun when I messed up—and don't even get me started on bra fittings."

"Mmn, definitely not, at least if we want to get out of bed before noon," Shizuru purred.

"See? See? That's exactly what I mean. I could _never_ have said something like that three years ago. How are you so comfortable with it?"

Shizuru pursed her lips, her thoughtful look real this time instead of feigned.

"That is a good question. I suppose that part of it is that you are a much more honest person than I am. So when you say something, you mean it—and that leaves you open to being embarrassed over it. And you react to what other people say in the same way. You're easy to tease because you take people seriously—and you're harder for me to tease now not because you're any better at telling whether I'm teasing you or not, but just because you're comfortable with these things now, as you said."

"Well, I can't deny that's true."

"Whereas I have always been better at separating my public face from my inner feelings, even at a very young age. It's _easy_ to say things that don't matter, to make revelations that aren't revealing, to use words not to communicate but as tools to prompt a certain response, whether it be a positive outcome in the student council or a cute expression on a girl's face."

"Yeah, okay, I get that, but…I'm going to say that these teases of yours weren't always just made up. You've made it kind of obvious that you had feelings for me pretty much right from the start, not that I noticed _then_."

Shizuru didn't deny it.

"You're right," she agreed. "But you didn't actually think so, did you, even when I told you the exact truth?"

Natsuki thought that over.

"No, not really. Wait a minute; what happened to your thing about me taking people seriously?"

"Maybe it would be better to say that you take certain topics seriously and expect people to do the same?"

"Hm, okay. So it's like, even if on some level I recognize that you're teasing me, I don't want to believe you could be teasing about what you're saying, so my reactions get kind of mixed up?"

"And because I knew that you wouldn't take me seriously—at least not past the first couple of seconds' confusion—it was easier to put my real feelings into words since I wasn't _really_ exposing myself to you."

Natsuki's gaze narrowed.

"Did you just sneak another one in there on purpose?"

Shizuru's smile offered nothing, which Natsuki supposed was as close to as yes as she was going to get. Though Shizuru could show off that composed, knowing smile when she had no idea whatsoever what was going on—it was just that the very concept of Shizuru _accidentally_ giving her a double-entendre was positively heretical.

"So why do it at all?"

Shizuru blinked in surprise.

"Come again?"

"Now I _know_ you're doing it on purpose."

"Natsuki has caught me. But I genuinely do what to know what you mean."

"Why flirt with me? Granted, you didn't think I would accidentally take things the wrong way and be offended, but why do it at all?" She reached out and brushed stray strands of hair out of Shizuru's eyes. "It must have hurt like hell, saying those things and watching me dismiss not even your feelings, but the very idea that those feelings were concepts that could exist in my conception of the universe. I mean, geez, just saying it out loud makes me think I owe you an apology for _not getting it_ for so long."

"No! Natsuki, you were driven by your need for vengeance on your mother's killers, in not only uncovering their identities and plans but making yourself into the kind of person who could take action successfully when you found them. That hardly left you time to spend thinking about courtship and dating or considering the question of your own sexuality."

"That really doesn't make me sound very attractive. A revenge-obsessed teenager that bitterly refused other people's presences because she was afraid of losing part of herself and hadn't even developed basic social skills?"

"Well, to me you seemed dedicated and sincere, not obsessed. There was a tragic purity in you that seemed so hard and cold I just wanted to shelter you from its cruel edges. Or maybe on some level, when I saw how focused you were on your goal, how it consumed you, I recognized something similar to that part of myself that could be utterly consumed by _you_. We were more alike in that than perhaps it seemed."

"I'd never thought about it that way."

She pondered the implications of that statement for a while.

"But Shizuru, that just makes my question all the more on point. I know how I'd feel if I kept trying to find out about the First District and the guy who knew who and why my mom died refused to believe I was seriously asking."

Shizuru sighed.

"Well, it was not easy, I agree. But…do you remember the first time that we had fortune cookies together?"

"Was that the day we got caught in the rain?"

Her girlfriend's face brightened.

"Natsuki remembers our romantic past!"

"Less teasing, more story," Natsuki groaned.

" _Ikezu_."

"I don't know what was so romantic about it, anyway. You talked me into going to a garden show, of all things, and then we missed the bus and got caught by that cloudburst. And because we were out in the sticks, we were basically drowned rats before we found a shop that was open after six on a Sunday night. So we ducked into this cheap-ass place with Formica tables and cracked leather bar stools like it was out of an 1950s American movie—"

"And Natsuki's stomach growled."

"Hey, I'd skipped lunch because I'd had a late breakfast! And I think garden shows would get a lot more traffic if they had food stands."

"So we decided to have dinner while we waited out the rain. Natsuki had dumplings and lo mein—"

"Oh, yeah, they were actually pretty good. It's hard to screw up noodles."

Shizuru's nose crinkled, indicating that she, at least, did not share Natsuki's generous opinion of the food from that day.

"It was also the first time I had eaten a fortune cookie."

"Really?"

"Most of the Chinese restaurants in the Fuuka area seem to be run by Chinese-American immigrants, so they continue the custom, but they are relatively rare in Kyoto."

"And knowing you, if you did eat at a place with any kind of foreign food you'd probably go for five-star cuisine, not take-out grub."

Shizuru did not contradict her.

"…Wait, are you trying to tell me you had a life-enriching experience from a _fortune cookie_?" Natsuki bit her lip. They were having a serious discussion, and it would be really inappropriate to burst out laughing. Especially since these were going to be full-on rollicking guffaws, not polite chuckles.

"And what is wrong with that? Natsuki has had many enriching and eye-opening experiences due to fortune cookies."

"I don't think that counts. You'd have just thought up different excuses to pounce on me if the fortunes weren't convenient. And it's kind of a stretch to call those 'enriching and eye-opening.'"

"Why, Natsuki, just last Tuesday you were telling me that you never imagined you could use a game controller to—"

"You don't need to explain the double-entendre. I was there, remember?"

Shizuru openly smirked.

"Vividly!"

Sighing, Natsuki said, "You win."

"Do I get a prize?"

"Just go ahead and tell me about this fortune. What did it say?"

"If I recall it properly, it went something like, 'I am always doing that which I cannot do in order that I may learn how to do it.'"

"I'm not sure that I understand."

"Well, you asked how it was that I could continue to tease you by flirtatious behavior when I knew that you would not realize that I was serious in my affections."

"So you were hoping that one day you'd figure out the right way to get through to me?"

"Seduction is a craft like any other, and so requires practice."

"…I'm guessing that 'go on a half-crazed rampage with a hydra the size of a building' wasn't quite what you expected to be how to get your feelings across."

"My beloved Natsuki is not, admittedly, a woman who overly appreciates the delicate subtleties of human interaction."

"I love you too," Natsuki said. Shizuru was obviously expecting another groan or waspish remark instead, because Natsuki's reply left her uncharacteristically flustered and speechless. Natsuki took advantage of this to lean in and kiss her, doing rather a thorough job of it. When she was finished, Shizuru had a slightly glazed expression, and Natsuki's grin was almost a smirk of her own.

"What was that about _me_ being the one who doesn't appreciate delicate subtleties?"

"I have to admit that Natsuki has opened my eyes to the positive aspects of the direct approach."

And, suiting her actions to her words, she reached out, took Natsuki by the waist, and rolled her girlfriend over on top of her. After all, there was always more to be learned, and Shizuru was an extremely diligent student.


End file.
